Not so average summer
by OpenUpMyHeart
Summary: Sequel to The Hardship of a Secret... "Out of all the things I wanted to do this summer, being stuck in the cretaceous period with you Chester, was not one of them" William spoke harshly.
1. Prologue

**Attention Readers- **This is the sequel to my last story The Hardship of a Secret and so I want to thank all of you that read it and all of you who reviewed as I appreciate your comments and suggestions! So thank you!!!

**An: In this, Cutter DID NOT DIE, and you have to realise that this story is set a good seventeen/eighteen years into the future. Oh and Claudia never disappeared.**

**Pairings:**

**Abby/Connor**

**Nick/Claudia**

**Danny/OC**

**Becker/Sarah**

**Isabella (OC)/ Ryan (OC)**

This story will mostly focus upon Isabella and the rest of the NG of Primeval. Hope you don't mind.

I did not put a disclaimer on the last story, so here is one for this one...

**DISCLAIMER:** I do **NOT** own Primeval, but if I did I would get Connor and Abby together and I never would have let Cutter Die.

This story will feature more Characters than ever!

It shall be from many points of views!

It shall be more exciting than ever!

And just for you **Oreal770 **there will more action and dinosaurs and lots and lots of little nasties!!!

Okay, that enough babbling, let's get on with the story!!

* * *

**Prologue**

**(Isabella's Prov)**

I really, really love summer, especially when it's a warm one.

The summer holidays started today, and so I and many thousands of British children and teenagers alike have six whole weeks of no school. I have six whole weeks of having fun with friends, six whole weeks of having fun with my oh so wonderful boyfriend, and six whole weeks of actually getting some Arc work done.

It's Brilliant.

Ryan and I have been together now since early March, so it we've been going out for roughly four and a half months, and we couldn't be happier. Our parents are happy about it, and our friends are cool with it; all totally supportive.

Except my younger brother Thomas, he seems to have a real grudge against Ryan now and no-one knows why. But we don't care; he'll get over it eventually.

The best thing though, was seeing Chester's reaction the day after Ryan and I got together. We didn't tell him ourselves, no, Ryan decided to grab me in the school corridor at lunchtime and he kissed me rather showingly; tongues and all. It was priceless to see Chester's mouth fall open, and even more so to see him trip over his own feet whilst watching us.

He doesn't really bother me at all now, so it's a win-win situation.

It's also made me the envy of all the other girls in our year, but it's totally worth it.

Needless to say, I am so looking forward to six happy, world saving, boyfriend filled, fun, Chester free weeks.

And nothing can spoil it.

* * *

Okay, so that was the prologue.

Hope you all enjoyed the tasters of this from the last story.

I am looking forward to writing this one; I should the first chapter out to you all very soon.

**OpenUpMyHeart is putting her pen down!**


	2. The beginning of the disaster

**Attention Readers- **This is the sequel to my last story _The Hardship of a Secret_ and so I want to thank all of you that read it and all of you who reviewed as I appreciate your comments and suggestions! So thank you!!!

**An: In this, Cutter DID NOT DIE, and you have to realise that this story is set a good seventeen/eighteen years into the future. Oh and Claudia never disappeared.**

**Pairings:**

**Abby/Connor**

**Nick/Claudia**

**Danny/OC**

**Becker/Sarah**

**Isabella (OC)/ Ryan (OC)**

This story will mostly focus upon Isabella and the rest of the NG of Primeval. Hope you don't mind.

**DISCLAIMER:** I do **NOT** own Primeval, but if I did I would get Connor and Abby together and I never would have let Cutter Die.

This one is going to be from many views, so you might get confused.

**Kate wants to become an actor-** Thank you for reviewing on the prologue, I'm glad you think it's a class story! I love writing it and I think there's a lot I can do with it.

**Oreal770-** Thank you for your review on the prologue! I have to say, I think you're one of my most loved readers!

**Warning- Swearing ahead!**

* * *

**Chapter one: The beginning of the disaster**

**(Isabella's Prov)**

I love being at the Arc, I really do. It gives me a sense that I belong, gives me a sense that I am doing something that is completely worthwhile, and a great sense of adventure and thrills that all others only dream of. I mean, doing this is only something a teen might do in a film or cartoon, and yet here I am, working for the government in a big conspiracy involving holes in time with dinosaurs, the future and other weird but wonderful things.

It's brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant.

Most of the time anyway.

It's also one of the only places that I can truly be myself. And that is what I'm doing now.

I share an office/Lab room with my Dad; who is, at this moment in time, at a fancy dinner party with my Mum, Lester, and all the other adults. This leaves me alone in the office to do as I please. The office itself is rather messy, both of our desks are cluttered with files and papers, and both our tables that hold our experiments are cluttered with random objects, the walls are covered in diagrams and drawings and rough sketches of dinosaurs and other creatures that we've come across.

It's a Monday; the first Monday of the summer holidays to be exact, and it's roughly half past five, the Arc is almost silent; I think Ryan, William and Nathaniel are in the rec room playing on the game station in there.

It's silent, except for the occasional echoing footsteps of the men on patrol as they walk repeatedly up and down the corridors. "Evening Miss Temple" Mr Jones said as he passed by the door to the office.

"Evening Mr. Jones" I reply back, smiling at him; Mr Jones or _'Derek_' rather, has become somewhat of an adult friend, he often volunteers to sit with me at an anomaly site whilst we wait for everyone else to deal with the mass panic of whatever drama is happening., and then I continue to write calculations on the touch-board. I'm currently working on the new calculations for the proton-anomaly generator; the last lot didn't add up properly, so it's proving a little trickier than we had originally thought, but we'll get it right, eventually.

I'm a little chilly, as the Arc air conditioning is on; making the air inside rather chilly, I wore cloths for the warm weather outside. I'm dressed in a black straight arm shirt with a green shooting star going across the front, a black three zip skirt that goes to mid thigh; it has a small white skull on the right side, a pair of black leggings and a pair of green converse.

I'm almost done with this equation and once I complete it, I might just go home or go out to Katharine's; I told her I might meet her and Jenna later.

But, as life is not always fair, I go to write the last series of numbers and the alarm goes off.

An anomaly, I don't know whether to be happy that I'm finally doing some proper work, or pissed because I was just about finnished for now.

I chuck the pen on the desk, I grab my anomaly bag and my jacket and I then run off down the corridor towards the main room; dodging patrol men as I go. I barge through the doors, almost knocking into Mr Jones as I get inside "Sorry" I say hurridely as I run and I get myself to the anomaly detector.

I sit myself down rather hurriedly.

I type furiously, locking onto the anomaly.

"Where is it?" Nathaniel calls as he comes up to me.

"Almost got it" I say, not taking my eyes off of the screens.

"Got it! It's at the Jetzon factory; a building just off skate park down on the estates, luckily it's being renovated so it's closed at five" I say, turning around in the chair.

"Okay, let's get equipped and get down there ASAP" Nathaniel says loudly; mainly to some of William and Becker's men. William nods at Nathaniel; William himself is dressed in a miniature version of what his Dad normally wears at work, black trousers, black t-shirt with the Arc symbol on it, combat shoes, preferably doc-martins, though he tends to wear leather fingerless gloves

"You heard the man-boy-, oh you heard him, let's get some weapons" He says to them, practically marching them out the doors; giving us a smile when Nathaniel protests at the man-boy comment.

Nathaniel is wearing a long sleeved white t-shirt with a pair of black jeans that are rather frayed at the bottom and look well worn; he's also wearing a pair of black and white trainers and is carrying a light grey leather-ish jacket.

Just as I'm getting up from the chair, my PDA starts ringing; the caller ID shows that it's Dad.

I answer.

"Everything alright?" he asks; voices very loud in the background.

"Yeah, just got an anomaly alert, that's all" I say, hoping that he'll let us handle it on our own.

"Okay, well, we can't get away, Lester says he'll fire us if we leave now, so I guess you lot are gunna have to deal with it on your own" Result!! "But, be careful, and make sure you all stick together. Just close it and document it"

"I know the drill Dad, look but don't touch, and don't be alone, been doin' this job a while now remember" I look up to see Nathaniel signalling that he's going to the cars "Listen Dad, I got to go, I love you, see you later, bye!" I say quickly and cut the call off.

I quickly walk over and follow Nathaniel out of the doors, slinging my bag over my shoulder and jacket around my waist.

**............**

When we get up to the vehicles, Ryan is helping William and Becker's men load up the back of the large, silver four by four cars.

He smiles at me and I smile back. He's wearing a short sleeved black and yellow chequered shirt over the top of a black long sleeved shirt with the slogan _'Rehab is for quitters'_, a pair of dark blue jeans and black and white converse.

"They better not break any of that equipment" Nathaniel says "He hardly ever concentrates on anything anymore, he's too busy staring at your arse whenever your about" He says loudly, most likely hoping that Ryan will hear him; he doesn't.

Nathaniel opens the car door for me and lets me get in first before going round to the other side and getting in himself; he sticks his head out of the window; "We'll see you in a few!" before telling the driver "Jetzon factory, back of the Hills estate"

The driver nods and we set off; another car following us.

"Ya'know, it's just my luck right? I was about to finish up and then go out to Katharine's, but no, an anomaly has to appear" I say, pulling out my anomaly detector from my bag.

My bag is full of all the equipment I could need in case of an emergency. Food rations, a small shocker for creatures, two torches, a small pack with mini screwdrivers, spanners, crocodile clips, tape, batteries, spare wires and computer chips, a small medical kit and a note book with a small army issued camera with night vision; for observations and such.

"Yeah well lucky you, I wouldn't have had anything to do. I just sat there watching Will and Ry battle it out on the game station" Nathaniel said, making sure that he had everything within his own bag.

"Hey, at least we get to hang out somewhere different" I say to him, an air of laughter in my voice.

"Didn't think renovated buildings were your style Isabella" he said, smirking at me.

"Nah, I prefer jumping from trees myself" I joke; making him laugh properly.

And we spent the rest of the car journey joking about.

**............**

When we got to the site; about twenty minutes later, we climbed from the car and looked at the building; it was surrounded by various sets of scaffolding, and looked rather derelict.

The area around had various containers of whatever inside, diggers, and other large scale building equipment around the place.

No sooner than a minute after arriving, the other three cars arrived through the open gates. Ryan stepped out and slung his bag over his shoulders and then made his way over to Nathaniel and I, we waited a few moments while William got his favourite weapon from the back of the car and slipped his own bag over his shoulders.

"Start securing the area, we're going to look around inside" William told the men; the men nodded, steadying their weapons "No-one gets inside the perimeter okay, and stop anything if it gets out; using tranqs okay?, I'll radio in when we've found it"

"'Kay then, let's go find this anomaly shall we" Nathaniel said to me "Lead the way then Isabella"

"Can I come in?" a voice asks from behind us as we go to go in.

I turn to look at my younger brother Thomas; dressed all in black but with a pair of red skinny jeans on; skateboard clutched underneath one arm. Freshly dyed black and blue hair sweeping over his eyes.

"I don't know, you going to behave and do as we tell you?" William asks sternly; his training coming into play. It's not like Thomas hasn't tagged along before, he did so a few weeks back when a flock of Jurassic lizards came through, he helped capture them and get them back through; he's gifted with handling animals, he gets it from Mum.

Thomas holds a hand over where his heart is "I swear it!" he states; smiling at us.

I sigh loudly "Okay, come on Tom" I say, I grab his hand and pull him along; he's a little weird like that, he doesn't mind about holding my hand, it's normally him that grabs it first.

Ryan looks at me in a somewhat reproachful way, and I mouth to him "He's my little brother" I say and head inside.

The others following me.

**............**

**(Katharine' Prov)**

I laugh at Jenna when she almost trips as we cut through the back of the Hills estate; there's a small dirt passage-way between the almost non-existent fencing of the Jetzon factory and the actual estate.

We're both dressed rather similarly, blue tank tops with thick black hoodies wrapped around our waists, we both are wearing faded purple skinny jeans and little pink pumps. We always dress like this, Isabella sometimes does it too.

"Didn't Issy say she might come to yours later?" Jenna asked me as we walked.

"Yeah, she said she'll see if she can make it" I reply, but I trailed of slightly at the end when I spot none other than Chester Johnston standing at a torn gap in the fencing looking at the Jetzon building. His hands are stuffed into his black jean pockets; he's wearing skinny jeans surprisingly, he's wearing a track suite jacket and a white and purple polo shirt underneath, with dirty white sneakers and a black cap.

"You talking about Isabella?" he asks, he doesn't even take his eyes off the building as he does so.

"None of your business Chester" I say to him in one of my stuck up ways.

"Maybe not, but I's sure like to know what she's up too" he says, sparing us a glance before turning his gaze back to the building; I wonder what's so interesting about it.

"She's at her Nan's, not that it's anything to do with you!" Jenna says a little angry.

"Really?" he says snidely, turning to look at us properly; he has a cut underneath his eye and his other eye looks all bruised; I guess he's been getting into fights already this summer. He then goes back to looking at the building "I didn't know her Nan lived in the Jetzon building" he said in a voice that didn't quite sound like him.

"What the fuck are you on about Chester?" I ask him angrily; Jenna nodding along.

"You say she's at her Nan's right?" He asks; not even looking at us.

"Yes" I say loudly "We've said that already!"

He takes a hand from his pocket and points in the direction through the fence "Well then, what's she doing with a bunch of armed men over there?" he questions.

I walk over and stand next to him, and I look to where he had been looking and pointing and "Oh My God, what the hell?"

"What?" Jenna asks; she's still stood where we were a moment ago.

Chester pulls on her arm gently and points to where we're looking; her mouth falls open in shock "They've got guns!" she says in a high pitch voice "William has a gun! What the hell are they doing?" she asks as Isabella pulls Thomas along with the others and they head inside. The men with guns then begin to fan out in directions.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out" Chester says; he slips past the hole in the fence, and legs it over behind a container.

"Chester!" I hiss at him "They have guns!"

He shrugs at me and glares at the pair of us "You ever think that them lot in there may be in trouble?" he whispers loudly "Are you coming or not?" he asks eventually.

I look at Jenna "He might be right" she says "You never know, they could be in trouble, terrorists'll do anything these days".

I sigh angrily and look out, the guards, or rather, men with guns, are mainly staying near the actual front of the building, I nod "Okay, come on" I say to her.

We run over to where Chester is "I can't believe I'm doing this, with you of all people"

"Well believe it Cook" urgh! I hate how he uses people's last names. He looks over around the container and then ahead of us to the building. "Look, that bottom window hasn't had glass put in yet, we can get in through there and then we can see what them lot are up to"

"What if the men with guns see us?" Jenna asks worriedly.

"Then stick your hands in the air and say 'I surrender' or something, I don't know because I don't plan on getting caught" Chester says annoyingly over his shoulder. After a moment he grabs my arm "Go, run for the gap" I do as he says and sprint over to the gap where the glass for the window should be, I climb inside just as Jenna reaches me, I grab her hand and help her get through. Chester comes running a moment later and like he's done this before, he easily lifts himself up and in, in one swift moment.

"Okay, let's go, they've got to be in here somewhere" he says taking off through a door to the left.

All me and Jenna could do was follow.

We come out into a very dark, large room stacked with boxes and crates "Storage bay" Jenna says looking at a sign that is being lit from a light somewhere below some stacked crates.

"Shhh!" Chester whispers when a door opens; he pulls us behind some boxes and we listen as they began to speak.

"Storage bay, nice guess Isabella" Nathaniel Cutters voices says quite proudly.

**............**

**(Nathaniel's Prov)**

I can't believe she's bringing him along. He doesn't even speak to her much, and he glares at Ryan all the time; but then again, he is her little brother and in about two years he'll be working with us properly anyway. Though he is a little odd, my little sister Kaitlin, is in year eight with him, and she don't hold my hand, she only ever likes hugging, and that's when her friends aren't around.

"This place is huge!" Ryan said; he was right, it's a fourteen floor high building, but the ceiling for the first floor reaches about twenty foot into the air. It's the factory floor, so there are plenty of old machines that the builders have yet to get rid of, but you can defiantly see where they've been pulling and stripping things.

"The anomaly is somewhere out back a back room, or most likely the delivery and storage area" Isabella says, she pulls Thomas along with her and heads straight to the back; the rest of us follow quickly and soon we're stepping through a pair of large double doors.

"Storage bay, nice guess Isabella" I say rather proudly; Isabella can be insecure about the job sometimes, but the rest of us know that we probably wouldn't be able to do this without her and her big brain.

"Thanks" she says quietly.

"Where is it then?" William asks, walking in front of us all and surveying the room whilst keeping his gun firm within his grip; he switched the light on top of it on. I pull my torch from my bag, whilst Ryan does the same and Isabella hands her spare one to Thomas; who finally let's go of her hand.

"Well Will, I don't know, you see, it must be pretty damn hard to find a big ball of pulsating energy that _glows _inside a _dark_ room" Ryan says teasingly; Isabella slaps him lightly on his arm, he just smiles at her, but looks away when Thomas glares.

"Shut it Ryan, the quicker we find it, the quicker we secure it and then we can get out of here" William said with a small hint of trepidation in his voice.

"Will?" I say.

"Hmm?" he sounds as we move around the room, mostly in the direction of the light.

"You don't have a problem with the dark do you?" I ask him; swiftly kicking Ryan as he snorts, he swears and then shuts up when Isabella gives him a look.

"No" William says quickly "It's just not a good situation, there's not enough light so I can't see well to protect you all from possible danger" he says professionally as we make our way through some crates stacked ten feet high.

'_CHINK' _A metal pipe rolled across the floor behind us.

"_Shit!"_ A voice whispers loudly straight after the sound; it's a voice that I and the others so clearly recognise.

William moves quickly to where the source of the noise and_ his_ voice came from "Come out with your hands up Johnston you prick!" he says loudly.

And surely, but slowly, Chester Johnston comes out from behind a crate looking at us cautiously, with his hands up in the air; but there are also two girls behind them, I recognise them as Isabella's friends, Katie and Jemma, no, that's not their names...

"Katharine! Jenna! What they hell are you doing here?" Isabella asks them angrily, shining the light in their faces; both girls glare at her, their hands still in the air.

"What are we doing here? What are you doing here?!" Katharine asks loudly, voice full of hurt and anger.

"You told us you were at your Nan's for the day, why'd you lie to us Isabella?" Jenna asks, sounding rather hurt, but eyeing the gun pointed at Chester. She glared at William, who only gave a small twitch of the head, as if challenging her to do something.

"Whoa, William the weird with a gun, damn, I always thought you were somewhat psycho William" Chester sneered "Bet you've waited a long time to have the upper hand on me eh?"

Williams face went stone still, and then he smiled slightly and pressed the gun into Chester's face; he didn't look so smug now.

"William!" Isabella scolded "Don't, think of the consequences, you could get us all taken in!" she said desperately.

"Taken in? Don't you mean arrested by the government for being part of a terrorist group?!" Katharine demanded angrily and smugly at the same time.

"Terrorist group, what the hell are you on about Katharine?" demanded Isabella, looking completely confused and somewhat pissed off; I would be to if I had just been followed by a prick and my two best friends, well, the best friends that didn't know what we all get up to outside of school.

"Well that's what it is isn't it?" asked Jenna "Or have you got some other excuse for the guns, government vehicles and all that shit?" she asked loudly and harshly.

I decide to interrupt them "We don't need to discuss this here, we'll deal with the questions later on, William, radio one of them men to come shut these three up in one of the van's, we'll let Lester decide what to do with them later. As of right now, we have a job to do remem-"

A loud growling sounded throughout the room, accompanied by a _'thump'_ and creaking upon one of the crates.

William immediately turns in the direction of which the noise came from, but his light shows nothing there. The sound comes again and this time we all shine our torched in the direction, but again there is nothing there; William turned around, doing a full sweep of the room, top to bottom, side to side, wall to wall, but we saw nothing.

A particularly loud growl came from a few feet to the right of me, and a crate came tumbling over; Ryan pulled me away, but I caught a glimpse of what it was before it seemed to move in a blur.

"It's big, it's black and hairy, and very fast" I say coming to a stop a few feet away from Isabella and Thomas; who was now looking a little pale and scared.

It was silent for a few moments, then the fast, big black hairy thing came flying over the top of the crates, almost knocking them into Chester, Katharine and Jenna, but the crates only very nearly hit them.

"What fuck was that!" Chester spun around, almost crashing into William as he did so "What the fuck is going on Cutter" he snapped at me.

I can see why he and the others are freaked out by the thing, it looks like a cross between a demented chimp, a snake as it has large fangs, and a tiger-bear as it has large clawed feet and a long tail. It also looks very nimble, which is obvious as it can move so fast that we can't track it properly with our eyes.

We looked up when we heard a 'whoosh' sound going above our heads.

Boxes kept falling on either side, forcing us backwards through the lines of crates; finally we were forced into the isle that held the anomaly. I looked up and caught a glimpse of the creature, and then another one was by its side.

"There's more than one!" Screamed Jenna; only to be shut up by Chester covering her mouth with his hand.

"Shut up you idiot!" he hissed at her.

William fired off several rounds at them, which cause them to jump away, and they were soon joined by another two, smaller ones this time.

"A pack! They're in a pack; they're hunting us like a pack!" Whispered Isabella in a slightly panicked voice, a bit louder than an actual whisper, but a whisper none the less. She looked backwards at the anomaly as we were being forced closer and closer to it by the black creatures, realisation dawned on her face "T-they want us to go through the anomaly with them", they're not hunting us, they're doing something else" she said as the creature growled, no, they weren't growling anymore, they were making some other noise, like a cross between growling and purring.

"They're toying with us" I finished for her, then rest of the crates came crashing down, one knocked into William which forced Ryan to stumble and eventually, we all fell through the anomaly like a row of domino's falling in a game.

All I could hear was everybody else yelling; and what sounded like the doors to the room crashing open; and then after falling through the anomaly, I hit something soft and hard; which cause the breath to be knocked out of my, and I began rolling very fast down some sort of hill; black and sooty dust clogging up my senses, as I rolled, I caught very brief, scattered glimpses of the others falling down with me.

I suddenly hit my head, hard, against something rather solid, and as darkness began to swim at the edges of my vision; I looked up at a darkening purple-blue sky, constellations twinkling, or were the stars actually from hitting my head, there was silence as it began to cloud my vision and I felt something warm and sticky sliding down my neck and on my back, there was only the sounds of the others groaning and coughing, until I hear Ryan call out in panicked desperation "The anomaly, it's closing"

Then darkness took over me.

* * *

**Oh No, what's going to happen to them? Is Nathaniel alright? How are they going to explain everything to Chester and the girls? How are they going to get home? Is there more to Chester than really meets the eye? Seriously, I don't know what going to happen yet, and I'm the one writing it!**

**Okay, so that was the first chapter in this story! I hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I liked writing it!**

I'm hoping to get the next chapter out as soon as possible, but it is a busy week for me; I have science revision on Monday, a trip to Carding Mill valley on Tuesday, and science revision on Thursday and then I sit a science exam on Friday.

But Wednesday, the school is on strike so I shall be home, so I'll try and write it and get it out to you ready for the evening!

**Please Review- and give ideas or suggestions if you have any!**

**OpenUpMyHeart is putting her pen down!**


	3. Seeing the other side of things

**Attention Readers- **This is the sequel to my last story _The Hardship of a Secret_ and so I want to thank all of you that read it and all of you who reviewed as I appreciate your comments and suggestions! So thank you!!!

**An: In this, Cutter DID NOT DIE, and you have to realise that this story is set a good seventeen/eighteen years into the future. Oh and Claudia never disappeared.**

**Pairings:**

**Abby/Connor**

**Nick/Claudia**

**Danny/OC**

**Becker/Sarah**

**Isabella (OC)/ Ryan (OC)**

This story will mostly focus upon Isabella and the rest of the NG of Primeval. Hope you don't mind.

**DISCLAIMER:** I do **NOT** own Primeval, but if I did I would get Connor and Abby together and I never would have let Cutter Die.

This one is going to be from many views, so you might get confused.

**REVIEWS!!**

**nikiriki5273- **Thank you for the review! She is a bit, isn't she?

**Ironicallynameless- **Thank you for another_ short_ review! I'm glad you find it intriguing, and I'm glad you like it.

**Hannah Moloshok- **Thank you so very much for your review! and I'm so glad that you enjoy my stories! I am such a big fan as well and it is my favourite show too! You keep reading and I'll keep writing it!! (I plan to write a few more stories after this one as I want to keep this series going as long as possible)

**Warning- Swearing ahead!**

* * *

**Chapter two: Seeing the other side of things**

**(Ryan's Prov)**

"The anomaly, its closing" I call out in desperation to the others.

I try to get up from my odd, sprawled out position; but as I stand, a pain shoots through my left leg, and a trickle of blood slid down my eye and cheeks. I wipe it away with my sleeve and I hurriedly scramble up the large hill that we had all fallen down as quickly as possible; but before I can even get a quarter of the way up, the anomaly flickers and disappears. We're trapped.

"Shit!" I yell out; kicking the ground in my frustration "This can not be happening!" I yell out.

I sit down, barely fighting the urge to scream out again.

Bu then I remember what Becker said _'If you ever find yourself stuck, don't panic, look for shelter or a place to stay and then come up with a plan, it's essential to keep calm or else you won't be able to focus '_

I take a look at our surroundings; it's a rock desert, black sand everywhere with dark brown rocks protruding every now and then. The sea is about 100 ft out in front of us and looks to be a little green, there's a long stretch of sand going to the right of us, and another stretch to the left that leads to a mountainous cluster of hill-like rocks; there might be some caves there that we can sleep in, or at least take shelter because the sun is low, meaning it'll set within the hour.

I look down at the others; William is stood, gun in hand and is too surveying our surroundings. Chester is sitting on one of the protruding rocks, cap in hand and resting his head on his knees. Katharine and Jenna are huddled together, both looking confused and panicky. Thomas is dusting himself off and is looking around as well. And Isabella is tending to Nathaniel- wait, what's wrong with him?

I scramble back down the hill, my leg still paining slightly; I kneel next to Nathaniel, he's bleeding slightly and he's unconscious; Isabella has taken out her medical pack "Can you hold him up please?" she asks me quietly. I nod and lift him up so that he's leaning on me as though he sitting up awkwardly; his head lolls onto my shoulder.

She takes a few moments to wipe the blood from his neck and around the rather large gash in the back of his head, the back neckline of his shirt is stained with his blood; his normally light coloured is now dark and matted slightly with him blood and the black sand; it looks pretty nasty.

She pulls some gel-cream from a small tube and puts it around the edges of the gash and then she tapes and bandage patch onto the wound; she does this mostly with her right arm. She then pulls Nathaniel's jacket from around his waist and places it onto the floor, together we gently lie him down, careful to avoid the wound.

"What are we going to do?" Thomas asks after a moment surprising me, I'd momentarily forgotten that he was even here; wherever here is anyway.

William answered before I could; his training taking over "We find a place to shelter as its going to get dark soon and we can't spend the night in the open, from there I think we should stay put for a while until we can mutually come up with some sort of plan as to what to do next"

"An anomaly should open eventually, it's only a matter of time, and when it opens, we go through no matter what, one should lead back to our time" Isabella says putting back the medical kit inside her bag and picking up her fallen anomaly detector.

"Okay" I say "Our best bet of shelter would be in those rocks, there's bound to be some cave or overhang that we can sleep in" I look at William "Want to lead us in?" He nods his head and takes to the front of the group, Thomas at his side; I look at Nathaniel and then to Chester.

"Chester do you want to make yourself useful and help me with Nathaniel" He nods and gets up, he grabs Nathaniel under one arm and places it around his neck and I do the same.

We begin walking; Nathaniel's feet dragging behind slightly, we pass by Katharine and Jenna who are just sitting there, silent tears falling down their faces "Stop crying you two, and get up or else we'll just leave you here" I snap impatiently at them; I don't have the time or the effort to be nice to them, if it weren't for them and Chester, we may not have ended up here.

Isabella walks next to me, Nathaniel's bag on her back, his jacket in her hands, her own is wrapped around her waist; she's holding her left arm a little awkwardly "You alright babe?" I ask, my breath a little short from supporting Nathaniel.

She gives me a small but clearly pained smile "Yeah, are you?" she asks quietly.

"As alright as I can be I suppose, better than Nathaniel at any rate" I smile and shift my grip on him slightly "Ya'know, for someone who does a hell of a lot of exercise and hardly eats a lot, he is heavy!"

We laugh a little, even Chester does; I think he sees my point by the looks of it.

We all grew silent for a while as we began climbing up some rocks; it was a little trickier than we thought, manoeuvring Nathaniel about without dropping him or bashing him against anything was difficult, even with all the others helping, but eventually we managed it.

Finally, as the sun was beginning to dip beneath the horizon, we arrived at where the very large rocks were, and sure enough, we found a rather large cave-like opening that we could stay in.

Carefully, Chester and I lay Nathaniel down at the very back of the cave, and I took his jacket from Isabella and placed it gently underneath his head.

We don't really sit together; William sits himself near the opening of the cave with Thomas by his side, the boy looks exhausted. Katharine and Jenna have sat themselves on the other side of the opening, their huddled tightly together and both have looks of shock and confusion on their faces. Chester is sat near them but not exactly next to them with his cap pulled low over his eyes. And Isabella has sat herself down by Nathaniel's head with her jacket wrapped around her whilst keeping an eye on the handheld anomaly detector in front of her; she rubs at her eyes with her right hand and settles herself against the wall.

I sigh quietly and go and sit myself down right next to her, she doesn't say anything but instead leans her head against my shoulder; I left my arm and place it around her so that she rests her head on my chest, she wraps her left arm around my torso gently, I rest my arm on hers carefully and kiss the top of her head; ignoring Thomas's subdued look that would normally be a glare.

It stays silent for a few minutes, and I'm pretty sure almost all of us were about to doze off, until Chester finally spoke "So, are you gunna tell us what's going on or not?" he asks; his cap still pulled low over his eyes.

"Not really" William says pulling a pair of sleek night vision goggles from his bag and placing them to one side.

"We deserve to know ya'know!" Chester snapped "We have every fucking right to know what the hell is going on! We have a right to know where the hell we are! You owe us that much!!" he shouts.

William doesn't say anything and neither do Isabella and I; instead, William goes about taking out one of those glow lights that only work at night, he places it in the middle of the cave.

"Please tell us" Katharine says quietly "He's right, we should know"

"We've fallen through a rip in time and ended in the future" Isabella says tiredly, lifting her head slightly so that she can look at them.

"Bullshit man! No way!!" Chester spat.

"It's true" Thomas spoke up "They work for a Government organisation called the Arc"

"Arc?" Jenna asks questioningly.

"Stands for Anomaly Research Centre" I say closing my eyes and pulling Isabella closer to me.

"Huh?" Jenna sounds confused.

"The anomaly is what we fell through; it's a rip in time that can lead to either the past or the future. The Arc monitors them, and sorts out any creatures or dinosaurs that come through" I say quietly; hoping that they'll stop asking questions because I'm tired and it's been a bit of a long and eventful day.

"How'd you know we're in the future?" Katharine asks.

"The stars are different, the air is slightly thicker, and there's black sand, there was no black sand in the past" Isabella says quietly, yawning at the end of her sentence.

"Huh, how'd you know all that?" Chester asks sounding slightly impressed.

But Isabella doesn't answer; she's asleep.

"It's kind of Isabella's job to know that sort of thing, Nathaniel's too, Isabella's main thing though is technology, she is impressively intelligent, more so than the school knows at any rate" William says proudly.

"Makes sense" Jenna sighs.

"What 'bout you Quinn? What do you do?" Chester asks.

I smile with my eyes still closed "A mixture really, don't really have that much to do with the technical stuff"

"Cause he's thick" William jokes; the others laugh loudly at this.

I open my eyes and throw him an amused glare "Shut up!" I say loudly to them when they continue to laugh and I join in too; but I stop when I remember that Isabella is asleep, she moves slightly but thankfully stays asleep.

I go back to talking to the others "I just do whatever really, help Nathaniel when it comes to plans when things have gone a bit wrong, I some of the dangerous stuff like running head first into a group of meat-eating future birds, now that was not nice I tell you, I get used as a distraction for some things. Me and Nathaniel normally make the decisions ya'know"

"So you're a floater huh?" Chester says; an air of joking in his voice. He turns to face William "What 'bout you William?" he asks with a smirk on his face.

William smiled slightly "Special forces, in training anyway, won't be fully fledged till im eighteen. It's my job to protect these lot, I'm also pretty good at mythology, comes in handy 'cuz the anomalies have been appearing for years so there's references in almost every culture, it helps us to know what or when we're dealing with"

"Whoa, William with a gun" Chester says in slight awe.

"He's our fighter" I sigh.

"Just doing my duty, protecting my team, the Arc and the entire world" William says smugly.

"The world?" Jenna asks unbelievingly.

"Yeah, these things appear everywhere, there's no telling what'll come through, that sickness bug in Japan three years ago, that came through an anomaly, Isabella's Dad worked flat out trying to find a way to cure it, never seen him so snappy before" William says showingly.

"Your parents do this?" Chester asks.

"Our parents are practically the original Arc team, we got dragged into it about a year ago, our team is on trial, we have regular reviews and we get paid, but one slip up and we could be out you know"

"And you've had to keep all this a secret?" Jenna asks, sounding almost excited.

"Yep, all our lives" William replies.

"We had to sign a secret act declaring that the government will lock us up if we tell anyone or let anyone know about what we do" I say closing my eyes properly and resting my head gently on top of Isabella's; she's most likely in a deep sleep.

"Will we have to sign one?" Katharine asks.

"Yeah, and you won't even be allowed to tell your parents, though it does depend on what Lester will do when they find out we're gone" William answers; he's sounding a bit tired now, but I know he won't sleep until everyone else is asleep.

"Lester?" Chester asks questioningly.

"Our boss, Sir James Lester, he's as cold as ice most of the time, but he generally softens up once in a while, especially where us four are concerned, apparently he sees us as nephews and his niece, though, it's most likely because we tend to be better behaved towards him than our parent's are" William says softly.

"Now there's something no-one would have guessed. William Becker, Ryan Quinn, Nathaniel Cutter and Isabella Temple are all agents in a secret government organisation that deals with time travel, dinosaurs and weird future creatures. It surreal!" Katharine exclaims loudly.

I don't listen to anyone else talk, and so I just let myself drift off into a light sleep, readying myself for anything.

**............**

**(Connor's Prov)**

We hadn't even arrived in the building before Danny started yelling.

"Why wasn't anyone with them?" he asks to the Special Forces men, they backed away slightly.

"We've been told to let them do the job and to do as they ask us, William told us to patrol outside and nothing comes out and nobody gets in" one of the men said to us as we made our way inside the building.

I held Abby's hand as we walked; whilst we walked another one of the Special Forces men came up to us.

"Mr Temple, I hate to tell you this, but your son Thomas went inside with them. And security footage shows that three civilian teenagers were with them. We have someone identifying who they are right now" All I could do was nod and pull Abby close to me.

When we arrived at the back room, two guards were standing at either side of the doors "There's something in there Sir James" One of them says to Lester.

Lester nods "Before we decide to do anything brash, I think we need to asses this situation" He turns to the man that told us about Thomas "Who are the others that were with them"

The man blinks and then stutters "t-they've been identified as Katharine Cook, Jenna Frances and Chester Johnston Sir"

"Oh no" Abby moans.

"I take it you know them then" Lester asks dryly.

Abby nods "Katharine and Jenna are friends of Isabella, and Chester is just a school bully" she says hotly.

"I see, well that adds more difficulty to this now doesn't it. I suppose we tell the parents that the children have run away, or that they're staying over someone house. Then I suppose we wait until they make it back" Lester says dryly, in his usual way.

"Our children are stuck in the past with civilians, school friends for fucksakes, with very little protection, very little food and very little knowhow on what's what" Danny spat at Lester.

"Now hold it Danny, Isabella is a smart girl, she has her emergency pack, she should be able to get everyone back" Nick said calmly.

"And William has a bag full of weapons and is totally mentally prepared for this, I made sure of it myself" Becker said calmly.

"They will be fine" Lester said calmly to them "Your children- your children are brilliant, they can cope with this, after all, they've had all you to learn from"

"I hope your right" Claudia whispered.

"Though if all hopes are on a Temple-"

"Shut up!"

I absolutely hate it when he says that, he doesn't say it about me very often anymore, but he does sometime make them comments about Isabella.

"How do we even know they're in the past?" Sarah asks worriedly, holding onto Becker's arm. He places an arm around her and kisses the top of her head.

"We don't, or we won't until we see what's inside there" Nick says nodding his head in the direction of the storage bay.

"Well let's get in there then" Danny says loudly.

Lester moves from the front of the doors, Nick nods at the men at the doors and they open them.

Straight away I know my daughter and my son and the others are in the future, because an ugly looking, black hairy chimp-like animal with fangs and big paws came racing out, making Claudia and Nick topple over onto the floor. It made a loud growling noise as it raced towards the front of the building, but it was stopped by a Special Forces officer who throws a big net over it.

"Okay, so our children are in the future" Danny says walking over to the creature; it was twisting itself around and around in the net and growling slightly.

"Let's hope they're alright then" Becker says; he has his gun pointing in the direction of the creature.

It stilled when it looked at the gun, and then it began purring slightly.

"It doesn't look too dangerous" Sarah says quietly, looking at the creature.

A commotion from the storage bay made us look around; two special forces men have a net over three more of the creatures.

"They're a pack" I say "Family" When the creatures look at each other.

"They're quiet far from the future, but they don't seem all that affected by human presence" Nick says as it touching one through the nets.

"Nice to know humans are gunna be around a little longer then" Becker said dryly "I'm sorry, but I don't think we should be here whilst our children are stuck in the future, we should be doing something" he says.

"There's nothing we can do Becker, we're just going to have to wait until an anomaly opens and they come through. Knowing Isabella and William, they'll go through anomaly after anomaly to get home, and they won't stop till they find the right time" I say to him, though I know he won't like the fact that we can't do anything to help them.

"So we're just supposed to wait around for them" Danny asks.

"Afraid so" I say.

"They'll all be fine guys, as Lester said, their smart kids, they're a good team, they'll find their way home" Abby says.

Lester chose this moment to come over to us "Right now, we need to think of something to tell the parents"

"Yeah we do" Abby sighed.

"I'll get one of my secretaries do figure something out, as of now, I think you lot should get these _things_ back to the Arc, and do your thing" Lester says with authority.

Nick sighed "You heard the man, let's get to work"

* * *

Not really any action in this, but I think it's good-ish.

I hope you enjoyed it and I'll get the next one done as soon as possible.

**Please Review- and give ideas or suggestions if you have any!**

**OpenUpMyHeart is putting her pen down!**


	4. Mankind’s future and coincidences

**Attention Readers- **This is the sequel to my last story _The Hardship of a Secret_ and so I want to thank all of you that read it and all of you who reviewed as I appreciate your comments and suggestions! So thank you!!!

**An: In this, Cutter DID NOT DIE, and you have to realise that this story is set a good seventeen/eighteen years into the future. Oh and Claudia never disappeared.**

**Pairings:**

**Abby/Connor**

**Nick/Claudia**

**Danny/OC**

**Becker/Sarah**

**Isabella (OC)/ Ryan (OC)**

This story will mostly focus upon Isabella and the rest of the NG of Primeval. Hope you don't mind.

**DISCLAIMER:** I do **NOT** own Primeval, but if I did I would get Connor and Abby together and I never would have let Cutter Die.

This one is going to be from many views, so you might get confused.

To my reviewers, I dedicate this chapter to you, so I hope you enjoy it!

**REVIEWS!!**

**Nikiriki5273- **Thank you for your review!

**Oreal770- **Thank you for your review!

**Warning- Swearing ahead!**

**(P.S- I might have taken a few things from the episodes for this story- but oh well, as long as you enjoy it!)**

And I'm sorry about how long it's took me to get this one out. I did try to upload it at about two today, but the document uploader on the site wasn't working!

* * *

**Chapter 3: Mankind's future and coincidences **

**(Nathaniel's Prov)**

Ow. Ow. Ow

My head hurts, it really, really, really hurts. It feels as though a brachiosaurus stomped on it repeatedly before sitting down on it.

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it really does hurt.

Really.

I'm a little chilly and my body feels stiff from sleeping on something rather hard. Perhaps concrete.

The last thing I remember is tumbling down a hill, or was it falling through an anomaly? No, it was both. I fell through an anomaly and tumbled down a hill and then hit my head on something, something hard anyway.

I open my eyes and see a dark stone ceiling. I blink a few times to get rid of the blurriness from waking up; I then sit up slowly, feeling a little dizzy as I do so. "Ow" I murmur putting a hand to the back of my head, but I feel a bandage patch on it, someone must have patched me up whilst I was out.

I look around, I am in a cave and it's rather light outside. William is sound asleep, slumped awkwardly against the wall, his head lolling on his shoulder slightly, with a pair of night-vision goggles over his eyes and with his gun held loosely in his hands. Thomas is beside him, curled up slightly on the floor with his arms around his knees and his head resting on Williams's bag; his skateboard is resting against the wall right next to him. Katharine and Jenna are asleep with their heads resting on one and others, and their curled up together against the wall on one side of the cave. Chester is lying flat out on the floor on his back, with one leg bent slightly in the air, and an arm slung over his eyes, his other his lying limply over his stomach; his mouth is open and he's snoring slightly. And Ryan is asleep not far from me, he's leant against the wall, with his chin on his chest, his hair falling over his eyes; and hands just lying loosely in his lap; Isabella's jacket is right next to him.

But Isabella isn't anywhere in the cave.

I look towards the entrance to the cave and sigh slightly before standing up slowly and stretching.

I walk outside, but on my way I turn off the light that William no doubted placed there.

The sun is really dazzling outside and it's rather humid outside the cave.

I look around for a moment; Isabella is sat on the ledge of the rocks where we are, her back is facing me and she's looking out towards the ocean.

I walk over quietly and come behind her "Hey"

She jumps slightly and spins herself around to look at me; she smiles when she recognises that it's me.

"Hey, you awake, how are you?" She asks me as I sit down next to her and dangle my legs over the edge.

"Okay I suppose, my head hurts rather a bit though" I say looking out at the ocean, the water is a green-ish colour; a flock of yellow birds- I think, fly across.

"Well that's to be expected, you've been out for a good twelve hours I think, you hit your head on a rock when we fell down the hill; pretty nasty gash too, it bled a lot" she said sympathetically; resting her chin on her knee and turning her head to look at me.

"I see" I say quietly. "And the anomaly?" I ask hesitantly; though I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.

"It closed, right after we fell through" wryly; rolling her eyes at her own words.

"I see" I say again quietly "What's our plan?" I ask, knowing Ryan or William would have come up with some sort of plan whilst I was unconscious.

"We decided to stay put and wait for another anomaly to open, we then go through it and hope we come out at home on the other side, if not, we wait there until another opens and go through it, and we keep doing it until we find the one that leads home; it's the best course of action really" she says in a weary voice; she sounds rather tired and she looks it too.

"Did you sleep?" I ask her concernedly; the last thing we need is for her to make herself ill and exhausted.

"A couple of hours, I think. I woke up when it was still dark, couldn't get back to sleep" yawing at the end of her sentence and rolling her neck; probably to get rid of some stiffness.

"Have a nightmare or something?" I ask resting my hand on her shoulder; she used to suffer with nightmares a while back, and a lot when we we're kids.

"Just a weird dream that's all" she pauses and I give her a look; she sighs "_An'_ I suppose I'm just worried about being stuck here. I mean, I let Tom come along with us for god sakes, and Aaron'll be crushed with both Tom and I gone. Not to mention Kaitlin will be upset because you're gone, and Lottie will be upset because Kaitlin is upset. Not to mention what about Robert and Peter, with William gone, those two are going to go mental! And what about Katharine's parents, and Jenna's and Chester's, what the hell is Lester going to do, he won't be able to hide the fact that eight teenagers go missing, _eight teenagers that all know each other_. And even if we do get back to our own time, _by some miracle_, our team will most likely be axed ya'know. So anyway that we look at this situation, we're _pretty much_ fucked here!" she breaths heavily, her cheeks tinted bright pink.

I am kind of shocked, Isabella has never spoken that much in one go, let alone so frantically and so negatively. Normally she's rather positive but rather quiet.

"You done now?" I ask her; still sounding somewhat taken a back.

She nods, still breathing a little heavy, but the pinkness of her cheeks is dimming.

"Okay, Isabella, Our brothers and sister _will be fine_ without us, sure, they'll be a little upset and a bit worried, but they'll be fine. And no doubt that Lester will sort something out with their parents, he'll most likely come up with some elaborate story to make it sound believable, cos I tell you, he _won't _let their parents find out 'bout all this. And the team is _not _going to be axed, if anything, they are _so_ going to praise us when we get back; which we will Isabella, and _you_ are going to get us there, you hear me, you can get us home" I say encouragingly and reassuringly.

"Okay?" I ask softly, hand still on her shoulder.

She sighs and nods. I smile and pull her in for a hug, to which she eagerly accepts, hugging me back just as tightly as I'm hugging her.

"We'll get home" she agrees quietly.

"You're awake" Ryan's happy voice cuts through the moment; we let go and turn to face him.

"Yeah, woke up lil' while ago, been out here with Isabella" I say back to him.

He comes over and sits right behind us. He leans over and kisses Isabella on the cheek tenderly and places an arm around her shoulders. I smile; it's nice to see my friends happy after they spent so long just dancing around each other.

"How you feelin' mate?" he asks me concernedly.

I smile "Feel as good as I can do after being out for the count for twelve hours"

"Twelve hours?" he asks, sounding lightly perplexed.

"The sun came up roughly six hours ago or seven, I think" Isabella says matter of factly.

"And you've been up all this time?" he asks hastily; now the one thing that's remained the same since the two of them started going out, Is that Ryan is still rather protective of Isabella, he's always making sure that everything is alright, and is always asking if she is okay.

"I couldn't sleep, that's all" she says reassuringly; I can tell that she doesn't want to tell him about it, and I'm pretty sure he can too, as he doesn't press the matter any further.

"Whoa" Chester's groggy voice comes from behind us. We turn our heads to see him stumbling out from the cave. He stops, runs and hand over his face and eyes, and then stretches whilst yawing rather loudly. "Mornin'" he says tiredly to us and begins walking off away from the cave.

"Hey, Where you goin'?" I ask him as he stumbles off.

"To take a leak" he calls back over his shoulder, smiling at us slightly.

I shake my head as he walks off and begins climbing down some of the rocks. I turn to Isabella and Ryan "Ya'know, he's actually not that bad"

"Yeah, once you get past his sarcastic, rude and obnoxious self, he's really rather nice" Ryan jokes, causing both Isabella and I to laugh.

**............**

A little while later, everyone was awake and just lounging about. I myself have come down to the ocean to wash my shirt off of all the blood, and to wash it off of my neck, back, and out of my hair; it's not really a nice feeling, being covered in your own blood.

When I get back to the cave, I leave the shirt out in the sun so that it can dry.

Katharine and Jenna are both lying out in the sun together; obviously taking advantage of the warmer temperatures and the brighter sun in order to get themselves some tans. I shake my head at them; sometimes I wonder why Isabella is friends with them at all, but then again, Isabella does seem to attract some weird people, just look a Chester.

I make my way back into the cave. William is cleaning his gun and has it spread out in parts in front of him. Thomas is flicking through the handheld 'creature base' it's an interactive log book that hold detailed information and pictures about each dinosaur and creature that all those at the Arc and its bases have come across; it's got actually voiced commentary and video footage as well, rather high-tech and designed by Connor and Dad, and always updated by Isabella herself.

And Ryan is lying on the floor with Isabella resting her head on his chest; both fiddling with the anomaly detector.

"Any sign of one?" I ask them hopefully.

"Nope" Ryan sighs loudly, closing his eyes and putting an arm around Isabella's back.

I look around for a moment before asking "Where's Chester?"

"Think he's gone for a pee again" William says sounding not bothered "Either that or he's gone walk about" he says whilst clicking his gun back into place.

I sigh aggregately "Okay, we have a new rule, don't wander off" I say sitting down against the wall, relishing in the coolness of it against my back.

We all stay silent for a few moments before Isabella says "Shouldn't one of us go look for him?"

"Yep" William, Thomas, Ryan and I say, but none of us make a move to actually get up.

After another moment, Isabella sighs "I suppose I'll do it then" she says irritated, she makes a move to get up, but Ryan doesn't move his arm, meaning all she can do is rest on her elbows. "Let me up please" she says pointedly, looking down at him. Ryan doesn't say anything, but he shakes his head. "Let me up" she says again, a little more forceful this time.

"No" he says smirking at her.

She pouts at him and William and I can only just suppress our laughter when Ryan appears to just melt at this. He sighs, moving his arm "Thank you" she says; she gives him a quick kiss before standing up.

"Whipped" both me and William says under our breaths.

Isabella makes her way towards the entrance; "Isabella" William says. She stops and looks back at him "He gives you any trouble, just yell for me 'kay? I got some tranqs that should keep him quiet" he says jokingly; though I'm pretty sure he might actually be serious about it.

Isabella smiles back at him "I don't need tranqs to shut somebody up Will, you should know that"

Ryan, Thomas and I all laugh at this; Isabella and William decided to have a karate/combat fight one Saturday at the Arc, and Isabella ended up kicking William into a wall, knocking him out for a good ten minutes, it's fair to say that William hasn't fought against her since then.

"Whatever" William says in a slightly embarrassed voice.

Isabella laughs quietly and makes her way out of the cave.

"One of these days I'll get her back for that" William says without doubt.

"Yeah, and then she'll just kick your ass again" Ryan laughs, putting an arm behind his head.

William says nothing.

**............**

**(Isabella's Prov)**

I laugh quietly as I make my way out of the cave. I pass by Katharine and Jenna, shaking my head at the as I do; I don't understand how one minute they can be so frantic and scared by all this, and the next, be so complacent as to just lie there in the sun getting tans.

I make it to the edge of the ledge of rocks that the cave is on, and begin to climb down them; all the while, keeping an eye out for where Chester is.

I walk along the sand for a few minutes, before finally spotting him sitting on a rock looking out at the ocean; he's right near the hill in which we fell down through the anomaly. I slowly make my way towards him and sit down next to him silently.

"How can this be the future?" he asks after a few moments silence; he keeps his gaze on the ocean out in front of us.

"How can the past be the past?" I counter back at him.

He snorts and laughs a little "Touché" he says; he quietens for a moment "But seriously though, have you seen the world over that hill?" he asks; he sounds so not himself, he's sad and worried and that kind of makes me nervous, if Chester is worried, something has got to be wrong. He's twiddling his thumbs as he speaks.

"No, why? What's over there?" I ask him hurriedly and slightly puzzled.

"I think you should see it for yourself then" he says looking at me before standing up; I follow him towards the hill that we had tumbled down the day previous.

We spend a minute or two climbing it, and when we reach the top...

"Oh no"

About three or four miles in the distance, there is what appears to be a city. A torn apart, desolate, and broken future city. The buildings look old, and are partially derelict; one especially tall building has a large chunk of its top right hand side missing. And many other buildings look to be falling apart. No sound is coming from it, no cars making noises, nothing.

"I think it's long been abandoned" I say quietly; I'm at a loss really for words.

"And so this is the future for mankind" Chester says bitterly and broken heartedly.

I turn to face him "It's _**a **_future" I tell him swiftly, placing a hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him "Chester, the future can change, it's never definite, this is only what it could be okay? Someday, somehow, someone can change it and it won't look like this. We just have to stay positive, come on, let's get back to the others"

"No need" Williams voice comes from behind us; the others are with him too, though Katharine, Jenna and Thomas are trailing behind; all their things with them and Thomas has Nathaniel's bag on his back whilst dragging his skatboard through the sand begind him. Ryan hands me my jacket which I tie around my waist, and gives me my bag and the anomaly detector.

"An anomaly's opened, and it's that way" Ryan says, pointing the direction of the city.

Katharine, Jenna and Thomas finally make it to the top of the hill; Katharine takes one look at the city before almost screaming "What the hell?"

"We're in the future remember Katharine. Civilisation's fall" Nathaniel says harshly to her "Get used to it, cause we're heading right into it" He says. He then turns to me "Gone on the Isabella, lead us there" he says softly.

I sigh, and begin walking.

**............**

It took us almost an hour to reach the outskirts of the city; due to the fact that we had to keep stopping because Katharine and Jenna were getting tired of walking and complaining that their feet were hurting. Honestly, those two are worse than the popular girls at the school.

But it was only when we reached the city that we begun to realise how abandoned and broken it looked. Vehicles were left in the streets, the buildings were dirty and broken, and windows were almost nonexistent. The black sand was also beginning to find its way into the streets. It was completely silent here, almost too silent.

"It's quiet here isn't it?" Jenna asks as we walk through one street.

"Yeah, a little too quiet if you ask me" William says quietly; he's walking a little bit in front of me, gun in hand; he really does look like his Dad when he does that. He's keeping a look out for anything that may pose as a threat to us, though there is nothing here at the moment.

"No life here what so ever, I would have expected to see some animals or something, even some birds flying overhead, but, there's nothing" Nathaniel says; he has the small camera in his hands and is documenting almost everything we go by, he said earlier that a video of what we've seen whilst here would be much better than a few pictures, and we have enough battery cells and memory power to go for about three months, but hopefully we won't be there that long.

He points the camera right at my face "Hey Isabella, say hi to the camera" he says teasingly.

I laugh and wave at it "Hi camera!"

He does the same to the others "Chester, got anything to say about your new-world experience?" he asks jokingly; I think he's trying to keep everyone happy, and make sure that we're alright.

"Yeah" Chester says to him and looks right into the camera "The accommodation here sucks man, and the lack of facilities is absolutely outrageous" he jokes, making us all laugh together.

"I'll be sure to mention that when we leave then shall I" Nathaniel replies; swinging the camera around to point at William "Hey Will, hows it lookin' up front?" he asks.

"Seems all clear" he states, looking somewhat bewildered at this.

"How can you guys be so calm about all this?" Katharine asks us, she's looking at us like we're all mental or something, which we kind of are if you think about it.

"Training, experience and lot's and lot's of meetings with dinosaurs" Ryan says to her as though it's natural.

Chester laughs "I never would have thought that you lot though, that _you'd be involved_ in something like this. I always took William to be a bit creepy and weird, _no offence_; I took you Ryan to be a popular prick who only hung around with them because you have nothing better to do. I took you Nathaniel to just be a nobody, I mean, at school your just a geek and not exactly popular or anything. And you Isabella, everybody knows your smart and stuff, and the popular girls only don't like you cause your pretty, but I didn't know you were like, the brains behind a secret government team and stuff. Your all, different from what us, and everyone else thought" He says, voice full of absolute sincerity and honesty.

"Oh My God" Nathaniel says breathlessly and sounding as stunned as I feel "_Chester Johnston_ is being _nice_ to us, he's not only being nice, he's saying nice things too. _And_ I got it all on camera!"

"Hey, don't make such a big deal out if Cutter, it's not gunna happen very often, I still think you boys are pricks, and Isabella's a geek"

"Thanks" us four mutter, sounding ungrateful; but really, we know that he actually does like us, sort of. And I think I'm beginning to see him in a whole new light, he's not an insufferable asshole anymore, just an asshole now.

I'm brought out of my thoughts by a sound.

I look around, as do the others. It's a twittering sound, like a crooked ticking noise.

William spins himself around to face behind us and he cocks his gun. The others and I turn to face the same direction as him, and we almost all freeze on the spot; Nathaniel has the camera pointing where we're looking and his hands begin to shake as he films what we are seeing. Standing about ten metres behind us is a large black and grey skeletal creature; it's got very thin and almost non-existent hair covering its form. It's standing on its hind legs so that it's standing about seven foot tall, it has large grey coloured eyes that seem to pop out from its skeletal form, it has a long snout-like face with large pointed ears; large yellow teeth are jutting out from beneath its black and white coloured lips; a very long and rather thin blue coloured tongue slithers out from the mouth and it licks around the creatures face before going back inside. It has long arms that are bent forward on its body, and on his hands it has five very large and very dangerous looking claws. It also has a rather long tail that is sticking up behind it, and on the end of the tail, is what appears to be some sort of stinger; the tail is shaking slightly, and that is where the sound is coming from.

Both Katharine and Jenna begin to shake, but both know to keep quite.

"Everyone, stay still, and stay quiet" William and Nathaniel instruct at the same time.

William, very slowly hand Ryan his gun; careful as to not aggravate or startle the creature into attacking us. And he very slowly slides his bag off of his back and very slowly, very carefully and very quietly opens it up. He pulls out what appears to be a grenade; but in actual fact is a very power stun-grenade, it carries a very powerful sleeping gas within and immobilizes anything that breathes it in for up to three twelve hours; depending on the size of the animal.

He zips the bag back up and puts it back on his back

"On three, I want you all to run after Isabella okay?" Everyone nodded; I didn't "Isabella, on three, I want you to run in the direction in which the anomaly is, okay? Just run as fast as you can, but we need to stick together" William says. Again, we all nodded, I did as well this time.

"Okay" he says "On three" he repeats.

"One" I breathed carefully, hearing William breath steadily himself.

"Two" he says, pulling the pin.

"THREE" he shouts throwing the grenade at the creature at the same moment that we all turn on our feet and run.

My feet pound on the ground as I follow in the direction that the anomaly is. I can hear the others running behind me as the grenade explodes and the creature roars loudly, the creatures roar is disorientating to our ears and I have to cover my ears as it does so, as it hurts them.

I continue running forward, checking the anomaly detector as we go. "Turn Left!" I call out to the others as I take a sharp turn into another street.

I know that they're following me as I hear Chester call out "I think it's down"

For a moment, I feel relieved and I slow down slightly as I begin to tire. But as I slow down, something comes from the side and slams into me; all the air escapes from my lungs, and I go flying across in the air, and smack into the ground. My shoulder and side flood my senses with pain as I skid across the concrete. I hiss at the pain as I come to a stop and hold my shoulder, I think I might have pulled it or possibly fractured it.

I feel dizzy as I sit up, and so I immediately lie back down on the ground. I ignore William shouting out orders, and ignore the sound of his gunfire. I barely register the grunting of some animal and the squeal it makes as it is shot. I just concentrate on ignoring the pain.

Then suddenly, someone is pulling me to my feet.

I open my eyes and see that it is Chester, he puts one arm around my back, and the other, is holding the anomaly detector "How do I read it?" he asks me; he's holding it upside down and looking at it with absolute confusion.

I ignore his question as I steady myself; I look at the blood splattered ground and the barely alive animal not too far in front of me; it's about the size of a German Sheppard, but must more shaggier, and with longer and large teeth.

Nathaniel points the camera at it, and speaks to it "And, this is another creature, most likely carnivore by the way that it just tried to take down Isabella. This is the second creature that we have come into contact with in the last two to three minutes"

I shake my head slightly "I'm fine now Chester" I told him; he lets go of me. And before I know it, another pair of arms wraps themselves around me from behind and a face is pressed into my neck.

"Are you okay?" Ryan's voice asks, muffled slightly against my neck.

"Yeah, yeah, ju-just a little dizzy that's all" I say, breathing heavily as try to stop myself from swaying.

He kisses my neck softly "You sure?" he asks quietly, kissing my neck again.

"Yeah" I say quietly, watching as William walks up to the creature. I close my eyes as he places the gun against the creature's head, and I flinch when I hear the gunshot. I hate that, I really hate that; William will almost always kill an animal if he deems it too dangerous let it live, or whether he thinks it would be better if it was just killed.

"We need to get moving" he says; I open my eyes to see everyone just looking at the creature, not even attempting to move.

"Now!" William says loudly "We have to leave now! There's no telling how many more creatures there are around here"

I nod, and Ryan slowly lets his arms unwrap from around me; he turns me around and gives me a very long kiss on the lips and then one on the tip of my nose before letting go of me properly "Lead the way" he says quietly. I nod and take a look at the anomaly detector before walking in the direction that the anomaly is, with the others following.

**............**

At around about fifteen minutes later, we arrive in front of a large building in which the anomaly detector shows the anomaly being. "You sure it's in there?" William asks from besides me.

"Yeah" I say looking back at the anomaly detector.

"'kay then" William says, cocking his gun "Let's get moving" he says to the others.

We make our way through the doors, William in front of the group, Ryan next to him with a gun in hand and Nathaniel next to him, also with a gun; William had decided to give them both one so that more of us are armed. Chester is the one holding Nathaniel's camera now, and he walks in step with me. Thomas; who has remained very quiet for most of the day, is walking next to Katharine and Jenna.

"It's, it's a library" Chester says, panning the camera around to take in the full view.

And he's right. There's a sign hanging from the ceiling that says _'Hill City Library'_. There are tones and tones of metal shelves, covered in dusty, thick books. The place isn't lighted very well, except the sun light that is coming in through the rounded centre glass ceiling. So I get him to turn the light on top of the camera on; William clips a small light onto his gun so that he can aim better, and Thomas takes a torch out from his pocket.

"A future library" Thomas says in awe, looking up at the mountains of books.

"I'm surprised they still have these in the future" Katharine says disbelievingly.

"Oh my" Jenna breathes scared, looking down one row.

I can see why she's scared, on the floor of that row, are dried blood splatters underneath a layer of dust.

"The anomaly should be somewhere in here" I say to William as we all stop and look around.

"Okay, guys, uh go in two's, spread out and find it" William says to us all; he looks at Ryan and Nathaniel, and both boys cock their guns. He then turns to Thomas and hands him a small pistol "Just point and pull the trigger" Thomas nods.

And so we split. Katharine and Jenna stick together with a torch and a small stun grenade; William had given them one earlier, and they head off in one direction, Nathaniel and William head off in front, Chester and Ryan go together and head off in another direction and Thomas and I head off to the right.

"Whoa, look at all this" Thomas breaths as we walk down in between two rows.

"It's amazing" I say back at him grinning; I mean it though, it really is amazing, we're in the future, in a future library with books that might not even be written for another couple of hundred or another thousands of years.

I stop suddenly, when one book catches my eye, the breath catches in my throat as I read what the side says _'The Arc and the truth behind the stories'._ Thomas notices it too. "Is that?, does that mean our Arc?" He asks, looking absolutely terrified and amazed at the same time.

"I don't know" I say breathlessly.

Before I could stop him, he reaches for it and pulls it from the shelf. On the front cover is an actual picture of an anomaly. He looks up at me and turns it over and quietly reads out the summary.

"_Nine hundred years ago, in 2007, the Arc (Anomaly Research Centre) was formed. Headed by a man called Sir James Lester, a small group of people began to unlock the mysteries of rips in time, also known as anomalies, this book and the continuing five others, documents just a few of their stories and dealings with the wonderful and dangerous tasks that fall upon them. Each book is on a generation of the Arc personnel. This book documents the journeys of the very first, and the legendary Arc team, Professor Nick Cutter , Claudia 'Brown' Cutter, Connor Temple, Abby 'Maitland' Temple, Captain John Becker, Doctor Sarah 'Page' Becker, and several other Arc employees. Also included is a detailed report on their children (Nathaniel Cutter, William Becker, Ryan Quinn and Isabella Temple) as they take on their very first expedition into the past at the young ages of seventeen and eighteen" _

Thomas looks up at me "Shit! This is like, way freaky! Nine hundred years, and their telling our stories, damn" he says in shock.

"Put it back" I say quietly "We shouldn't be reading this, this is our future. Let's just forget we saw it, okay?" I ask.

"Yeah" Thomas says "Of course, it's potentially dangerous after all"

"I'm going to take a look in there, I'll see if I can find anything that might hint as to what happened to the city" I say, pointing to a door that has a sign reading 'Librarians office' "You wait out here okay?" He nods his head but stays silent; I think he's silent because of what's on the door, more blood splatters that have long been there.

I head off towards it, trying to block out all the thoughts and feelings that have just flooded through me from Thomas has read out from that book. But I'll think about it later. I also try to block out the thoughts on the blood splatters.

I get nearer to the door, but only to see that the door has no handle, but once I get to about three feet away, it slides opened by itself. I step slowly inside and turn to watch it slide back closed behind me.

I sigh and turn around to survey the room; it's rather dark, so I pull from my bag my own camera and turn it on, allowing light to flood the room; I'm using the camera because I want to document anything interesting that I might find. I look at the room, the walls and floor are all white; but splattered slightly with blood themselves, there's a red coloured sofa next to two silver panels in the wall. Opposite to them, is what I think is a desk that protrudes from the wall, it has a silver and red stall in front of it. On the 'desk' there are two very thin metallic poles standing about fifty centimetres apart and forty centimetres tall.

I speak softly into the camera "The door said Librarians office, so if that's right, this should be where I can find some information on what happened here"

I walk over and sit down on the stall facing the 'desk'. I jump suddenly when between the two metallic poles, a screen flickers into life, and from nowhere, coming out of the desk it a digitised keyboard.

I look at the 'screen', there is still files that are open from when it was last used; almost like the last person using it didn't have time to turn it off. There's no mouse, so I have a go at pressing the screen. I touch it and a folder opens up, and I pick the last one that was used. It's an audio file; I debate whether or not to listen to it, and I decide to press it.

A quiet and tired ragged American voice begins to speak; it speaks very fast, as though it hasn't got much time _"My name is Hinjha Zatuna and I have been the Librarian here for forty-one years. Last nights, reports began flooding through the city from the Arc for us to evacuate, and that they would be there to meet us and sail us over to England; I know I should've moved away from here, or at least gone with my Husband"_ A loud growl cuts through the woman's talking, and she whimpers _"The creatures are here, people are dying and their being hunted. These creatures, their horrid, and their fast and strong and bloodthirsty"_The woman pauses for a moment_"I urge anyone who is listening to this, to be careful and to get yourselves away from the city. Good lu-" _The woman doesn't finish speaking, as a roar cuts through and she begins screaming; I can hear the creatures growling and the woman gurgling as blood most likely fills her throat; some animals go for the throat to kill their prey.

I go to get up from the stall; being rather freaked out by what the woman had just said and the fact that I just heard her die. But looking at the screen, another file catches my eye, it's a video file entitled _'Anniversary dance' _and so I, always curious, open it and let it play.

A dark skinned, aged woman with grey hair is dancing with a light skinned man with equally grey hair; their both laughing and swaying side to side with the music. And a voice off screen begins to talk _"Aww, this is Mr and Mrs Zatuna sharing their 40__th__ anniversary, they have been married since they were only sixteen, and it's fair to say they are still happily in love" _I look and Mrs Zatuna and feel myself begin to tear; I just hear that woman die and now I'm watching her laugh and be so happy. I then look at the Husband, Mr Zatuna, and something catches my eye. On the man's forearm, is an old tattoo; it's not the fact that the man has a tattoo that caught my eye, it's the fact that the tattoo is the Arc's insignia. I zoom in on it and say out loud to myself "So her husband was a member of the Arc, I think"

I go to close the video, when a face in the party crowd catches my eye; it's been ten years since I've seen that face, but she is still recognisable to me, and it's pretty obvious that something else has gone on. I zoom in on the face as she looks directly up to the camera in the video, and I say one word "Helen"

The video ends there and I sit still "Why would Helen be there?" I ask out loud to myself.

It's all too weird, and seems to all be too linked to be a coincidence. The city Arc supposed to be evacuating the city because a swarm of creature's begin attacking it, Mr Zatuna being a member of the Arc, and Helen being their; and the way she looked into the camera, it was, it was almost like she knew that I was watching it.

I shake my head and decide to do a little research on the Arc; I place my camera in my lap so that it can face the screen. I bring up what I think is to be some form of internet search engine and type in the space _'Arc'. _A page immediately comes up, the first thing I see is the Arc insignia and then a series of places to go, thing such as 'Reporting a new creature', 'Creature Logs', 'What is the Arc?', and there was even one offering a cheap deal on the books that it had brought out.

A picture catches my eye; Helen's face with warning written across the bottom. I click on it and words begin to appear on the screen along with a voice reading them out _"Helen Cutter is from the twenty-first century, she very dangerous, and is known for causing chaos and mass panic by unleashing creatures from unknown times. She is so far responsible for over thirty human deaths, and attempted genocide of several species of animals, both dinosaur and future. If you see this woman, she must be reported no matter what, do not confront her, juts alert the Arc immediately- for more information, try our"_ I click off of Helen and scroll through the rest of the page.

"Nice to know Helen is just as dangerous in the future as she is now huh?" I say to myself; not liking the silence that seems to envelope the room.

"Maybe I should hack into the files, see if I can find any reports on what went down here"

I try that and begin typing; the door opens and Thomas comes inside, he's slipping Nathaniel's bag back onto his back. "They've found it Isabella" he says walking slowly over to me, he looks at the screen "What're you doing?" he asks.

"Hacking into the Arc's files. Seeing if I can find anything on what happened here. I have a suspicion that it wasn't caused just by an anomaly" I say; I manage to break through the second to last security code, the basis hasn't changed much.

"You think a person is behind this?" he asks me sounding horrified at the thought that someone would cause all of this to happen.

"Yeah, but I'll explain later, yes!" I got through the last code and the system opens itself for me. Clicking on file search I type in Hill City, and immediately one file jumps out at me.

A voice from behind the door makes both of us jump "Come on, we found the anomaly, we need to get going"

"Yeah! Hold on a second!" I yell back whilst I find the print button and when I do, I press it; a small gap appears from the wall along with a tray underneath, pages began printing off at a speedy rate, and within one minute, the whole file, which is seventy-three pages, has printed. I pick them up and roll them up into a tube and put it within my bag.

Whilst I had been doing this, Thomas had taken it upon himself to look at the two metallic squares by the sofa. I watched as he pressed his hand lightly to one and the both swung open. It was a cupboard, and it was completely empty; except for a silver and blue spherical object, it was just completely round with nothing on it. Thomas pocketed it "You can look at it at some point, no telling what it could be, might come in handy"

"Okay" I say to him whilst putting my bag back on my back and motioning for him to go in front

We walked out of the room; Nathaniel was waiting outside for us.

We walked down a few rows of book; Thomas kept shifting Nathaniel's bag that was on his back, causing Nathaniel to ask "Do you want me to carry it?"

"No, no" Thomas says somewhat hurriedly, tightening his grip on the bag"I don't mind carrying it for you, it gives me something to do for you lot" he says not looking at me at all.

"Well thanks Tom, it's nice of you" Nathaniel says clapping him on the shoulder as we round a corner and see the anomaly.

I turn the camera off; I don't want it to go on the fritz when we go through.

Chester still has the one that Nathaniel gave him "So, we're going through there?" He asks pointing the camera at the anomaly.

"Yep, that's the plan" Ryan says "Tough you might want to turn the camera off before we go. Anomalies can have weird effects on certain things"

Chester nods and switches it off and then places it in his pocket.

"Okay then" William says turning around to face us "Let's get going" he smiles slightly, a look of trepidation on his face; one that he tries to hide from us.

We all begin walking forward; I take Ryan's hand as we do "I hope to god this leads us back home" Nathaniel says loudly to us all.

And I can't agree more.

* * *

**Wow,** that was probably one of the longest chapters that I have written for any story. And it kind of freaked me out, and I'm the one that wrote it!

I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!

I'll get the next chapter out when I can.

**Please Review and if you have any ideas that you think would be good, let me know!**

**OpenUpMyHeart is putting her pen down!**


	5. Doesn't this just keep gettin' better

**Attention Readers- **This is the sequel to my last story The Hardship of a Secret and so I want to thank all of you that read it and all of you who reviewed as I appreciate your comments and suggestions! So thank you!

**An: In this, Cutter DID NOT DIE, and you have to realise that this story is set a good seventeen/eighteen years into the future. Oh and Claudia never disappeared.**

**Pairings:**

**Abby/Connor**

**Nick/Claudia**

**Danny/OC**

**Becker/Sarah**

**Isabella (OC)/ Ryan (OC)**

This story will mostly focus upon Isabella and the rest of the NG of Primeval. Hope you don't mind.

I did not put a disclaimer on the last story, so here is one for this one...

**DISCLAIMER:** I do **NOT** own Primeval, but if I did I would get Connor and Abby together and I never would have let Cutter Die.

This story will feature more Characters than ever!

It shall be from many points of views!

It shall be more exciting than ever!

**Mentions/Hints of Slash- sorry**

**I would like to apologize to my fans of this story – It was on Hiatus due to the unforeseen circumstances of the last months (Well year), so I am sincerely sorry for any inconvenience I may have caused you... and I hope you enjoy reading my primeval stuff again... so I'll finish this story up and get to work on a new one to compensate you all for my absence! **

This story is going to switch to and back from different point of view.

**Chapter Five: Doesn't this just keep gettin' better**

* * *

**(Nathaniel's Pov)**

Warm air hits me the minute I step through the anomaly. I take a look around; William does the same, scanning the area, gun propped in his arms skilfully, as always.

"Oh god" I breath; we were in a large jungle-like wooded area, tree's stretching almost forty or fifty feet tall with vines hanging in and out and around, leaves almost as long as our arms drooping from all around. Plants and bushes surrounding the roots in vibrant shades of red and blue and purple.

Insects, rather like dragon-flies flew low and high between the vines, and a light breeze brought forth the wind, with pollen buds, floating across the air. It really is something.

"Now this is more like it" Chester said happily. Stuffing his hands into his back jean pockets.

"Don't get too happy just yet Chester" I tell him; taking another quick survey of our surroundings. So far, everything seems okay.

"And why not... warm place, trees... kind of looks like the wooded area, the nature reserve in Falkland park" Chester said quietly, fingering the leaves hanging by his own head.

"Awww, Chester, are you an eco-lover?" William teased, easing the grip on his weapon and grinning devilishly; the grin that made me smile every time... _whoa, keep on track Nathaniel_ I think to myself, shaking my head slightly.

"We're destroying our own planet Becker; all those carbon emissions are completely shredding the o-zone layer, allowing the suns radiation to heat up the planet two degree's every few years... I just think that it's a shame that we're destroying our own future that's all... jerk" Chester shot back defensively; taking up his usual pose of arms clenched by his sides.

I watch William shuffle his feet slightly "Sorry man... I understand" William spoke softly.

"Ok!" I interrupt loudly. "We need to move, because from what I can see, we're not in a safe place"

"Jurassic Period... I totally agree!" Isabella said loudly from behind him; looking out between the trees towards something that we couldn't see "Now if we get moving now, we can meet a new anomaly that's just opened four miles in..." She turned at a forty-five degree angle "that direction"

"Okay" I say "Let's move out then, if we're lucky we can get there in roughly half an hour" I begin to walk in the direction that Isabella pointed.

"Hey!" William snipped "Behind me please, I am the one with the largest gun" he said moving ahead.

"That's what she said" Chester murmured; Thomas snickered but was silenced at a glare from William.

**...**

"Urgh!, how much further!" Katharine moaned, traipsing over a large root of one of the trees.

"Another 1.23 miles" Isabella said quietly.

"How can you guys stand this?" Jenna asked tiredly.

William smirked and snorted "Because Jenna, we're used to it... plus, some of us actually pull our weight in PE classes"

Jenna huffed "I do pull my weight... it's just some of the games and stuff are stupid... I mean, who plays basketball anymore?"

"Basketball players" William, Chester and Ryan said at the same time.

I laugh lightly but stop when something caught my eye in the trees. I raised my hand and put a finger to my lips; it took a few moments for everyone to quiet down. "What do you see Nath?" Williams asked, looking in the direction I was looking.

"I don't know. Something moved" I say, stepping forward a few paces. Ryan and William immediately at my sides; Isabella staying with the others, she has to grab onto the back of Thomas' collar to stop him from following, to which he pouts and crosses his arms.

A few paces in I can make out the shape of something quiet large; and a slight sense of relief floods me when I see what it is. "A large herbivore... I think it's a Stegosaurus by the horns on the back and tail... judging by the size, it means we're possibly in the late Jurassic"

"Herbivore? That's good right?" Ryan asked, tilting his head slightly.

"Generally Yes, but in many cases herbivores in themselves can be dangerous, because most herbivores are large creatures with strong tails and such..." I sigh "fascinating creatures really, all that strength and power, and brute force, and yet they choose not to kill and devour other creatures, but eat plants and practically non-living things... they're gentle and kind really" I say with a smile on my face.

"Hmmm" William sighs "But I would rather we get out'ta here, it may be a big softy, but it's still bloody big" He says, lowering his weapon slightly.

"Yeah you're right, but hold on a second okay" I turn back to Isabella "Bells, Can I have the camera... I want to record some of this" Isabella smiles and chucks me the camera.

I quickly turn it on and point it at the Stegosaurus "Soooo, uh, I believe us to be in the late Jurassic period, and this here is our friendly-ish herbivore, the Stegosaurus, considered to be the largest of the stegasaurid family and existed throughout the late Jurassic period. Its name is derived from the Greek word 'stegos' meaning roof and 'saurus' meaning lizard, making it the 'Roof Lizard'... whatever that means" William snorts and I stick my tongue out at him "This one seems to be about 30ft long, which is the norm for such creature..."

"Okay, let's get moving now shall we, before our anomaly closes" William sighed, pushing me back towards the other.

"Okay okay!" I laugh quietly and pass the camera back to Isabella, who keeps hold as it as we continue walking.

**...**

**(William's Pov)**

It takes another twenty minutes before we're almost at the anomaly. The group have all stayed mostly quiet; Nathaniel's spent that time explaining to everyone about everything they see.

"A very interesting fact that has been noted by scientists is that despite their magnanimous body size, their brains were extremely small. Whilst their body weight stood close to 5 tonnes, its brain weighed a puny 80 grams..." He gets a real buzz out of all this stuff.

Isabella is probably the quietest of all; she's still holding the camera forward and recording everything that's going on and being said, but only speaking to tell us how far and when we should alter our course. It's like she's thinking, which isn't unusual, because at the ARC Isabella is generally quiet, always working on something, whether it's a new theory or equation. It's kind of weird really, looking back over the years, Isabella has always been exceedingly smart and clever, possibly more than she should be; she's always been interested in the ARC and anomalies, and seems to understand them in a way that only Nathaniel's Dad, Nick, does.

But I can already tell this is something different, because she's got a small confused look on her face too, like she just doesn't understand something and it's bothering her; and if it's bothering her then it's likely to end up interfering with her work and such.

Thomas is kind of acting weird too now that I think about it. Normally he's quiet bubbly and energetic, and is normally asking about a million questions a minute. Except now he's only talking when someone's talking to him, and he's also got the same look on his face that Isabella does.

"Okay... Guys, it's just a few meters in ahead" Isabella says, interrupting my thought; just as a roar is heard through the trees.

"Move!" I snap brushing forward "Now, everyone, quickly"

I burst through some leaves, and the anomaly is no less than a meter in front of me.

Another roar, louder this time, with ground shaking movements too.

I grab hold of Ryan's collar and fling him forward "Through now, all of you!" I say pushing him into the anomaly. I push Thomas and Chester through. Another roar, much closer. "Girls, you next" I say pushing them forward; Isabella protesting loudly to me "I'll be right behind you" I tell her, looking back for Nathaniel.

He isn't there.

"Nathaniel?" I shout; stepping back through the leaves to see him standing still, looking slightly dazed for a moment, before blinking at me.

I grab his forearm "Nath... come on man, we gotta go" I say quietly; I'm worried because of the look on his face, and how pale his skin looks.

Another roar. Tree's breaking, branches snapping, and the ground trembling.

I pull him along quickly; him stumbling behind me and into the anomaly.

**...**

**(Ryan's Pov)**

We stepped out of the anomaly and into a desolate street, the sky was dark and cloudy.

Almost immediately Katharine and Jenna screamed; and I could see why.

Three future predators and a swarm of Insects flying overhead.

Isabella pushed at Thomas and the girls "Run!" she snapped; and we didn't need telling twice. We took off down the street to the right, weaving our way through the cars just left in the roads. I can hear the clicking that signifies that we're being followed.

Thomas is right at my side, a look of absolute terror on his face.

I grab hold of him as I spot a slight open door to what I think is a block of flats "Inside" I tell him pushing him in front of me and up the steps into the door; I hear Chester yell and Isabella shouts something. But before I can turn back, both Katharine and Jenna barrel into me, forcing me through as something large and heavy slams against the door, buzzing loudly.

"Close it!" I yell at them, grabbing the handle to pull the door closed; Thomas grabs hold of it too and together, along with the girls we pull it closed.

**...**

**(Isabella's Pov)**

As Chester falls he yells out a string of words in what I think is French; I turn back to help him, and as I do I see one of the insects flying straight towards Ryan and the girls on the steps "Look out!" I yell at them as the insect closes in.

I don't see what happens next because I hear the clicking of the predators again, and I roughly grab Chester by the collar of his jacket and drag him to his feet "Come on, we have to get out of here" I tell him, looking back towards where Ryan and the girls had been, to see the door covered by the insect.

I pull him along with me as we begin running again whilst the sky begins to darken slightly.

We run to the end of the street and I jump a small brick wall into what I think is a small patch of greenery between two roads and an office building, with Chester right behind me. The building looks more battered than most of the others around it, but it would have to do.

The clicking gets louder and I decide to pull out my gun; though technically it's not mine.

I point Chester towards a door "Through there!" I tell him "Go!" He nods and runs off quicker than me and tries to open the door.

I turn and start shooting at the insects that had followed us; one fell down instantly, but the next one only dropped slightly in the air. I shot at it again.

"It won't open!" Chester yelled, banging against the door, and tugging desperately at the handle bar.

"Keep trying" I shot back at him; shooting again and hitting the insect this time. There was another one flying in overhead, and I aimed at it, hitting it straight in its wing.

"Look out!" Chester screamed at me. I gasped slightly as I caught sight of something grey streaking through the air towards me, but just when I thought it was going to hit me, a series of bullets rained through the air, killing the Predator mid-air.

I span around to see where the shots came from.

A young woman stood on the other side of the green, with two men. All of them were dressed in what looked similar to the ARC uniforms, only with slight differences, and all three of their uniforms look slightly over worn; but all three were carrying guns. The young woman looked to be no older than twenty-two or twenty-three; she was pale, with bright eyes and bright blonde hair; and the ARC insignia blazing on her chest.

The woman looked at me and her eyes widen slightly in shock, and then she looked at Chester and her eyes widened even further. She raised her gun and pointed it at me "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" she asked, an air of authority to her voice.

I swallow hard and look at Chester as he steps slowly over to me. I turn back to the woman.

"My name is Isabella Temple, and this is Chester Johnston... we we're running from those Predators and Insects... so, uh, thanks for that. And you are?" I ask her; more confident but confused at the look of absolute shock flutters across her face.

"I am Olivia Galloway of the Anomaly Research Centre, and I do believe that you need to come with us" Olivia Galloway spoke quickly and pointedly; she smirked "Unless you want to be left out here in the dark"

"What about my friends... they're out there somewhere" I tell her quickly; worry beginning to bubble in my stomach.

"Sorry kid, but we don't have time, it's gunna get dark real quick... with any luck, you friends are smart and they'll stay put until sunlight... now you coming or what?"

I sigh and nod; slowly making my way over to the woman and two men.

Chester mutters in my ear dryly "Well, this day just keeps getting better and better"

"Yeah" I sigh tiredly, holstering my gun, and then smirking look at him "Since when do you speak fluent French?"

Chester groaned.

**...**

**(William's Pov)**

We emerged in a street, and for a second I believe us to be back in our own time. But those thoughts are almost immediately squashed down when I see the abandoned cars caked in mud and dust, and the broken and abandoned buildings. Nathaniel stumbles straight into my back; hands automatically fling to my shoulders.

"Oh my!" He breaths.

The sky is dark and cloudy; the buildings are covered in vines from plants, in the distance, flying insects are swarming through the sky and across the top of buildings.

"... Two abandoned cities in as many hours" He comments quietly; confusion and sadness ebbing at each of his words.

"Co-incidence I'm sure" I say dryly; however I suddenly straighten and Nathaniel removes himself from me. "Uh, where are the others?" I ask.

"I don't know... I don't see them anywhere" Nathaniel replies, walking slowly and looking about past cars and down the roads that we can see. But there's no sign of them... except the anomaly detector on the ground several feet away.

"Oh shit" Nathaniel says, bending down to pick it up.

Oh shit was right. Slowly I grab hold of his shoulder "I wouldn't want to worry you Nath... but we have company... of the future kind" I speak quietly, nodding my head in the direction. On the building in front of us there are two future predators, and flying overhead again are those insects.

We've never actually seen any of these creatures in the flesh; we'd only seen them in the logs and heard of them in reports and such.

Nathaniel tugs me slightly and whispers so quietly that I almost missed it "Slowly and quietly... tread softly... remember they see by sound" he pulls me along to the street on the left and we tread slowly and carefully, trying to stay quietly. I couldn't even cock my gun because they'd hear it; finally after what seems hours we reach the corner of the street, and quietly but quickly duck around, treading quickly down the street.

I spot what I think is a newsagents or something; its perfect for a hide out, as its getting dark, and the place has those protective panels that cover the window and door. I quietly pop open the door and drag Nathaniel inside, before making my rounds, checking the back doors and out back.

I close the back door, and block it with a cabinet, the doors flying open and random items falling out; among those items are a med-kit as well as blankets and a tool box. And almost as if by some miracle chance a set of keys fall out to lay on the floor by the back counter; I use them to unlock and pull down the metal panel to plunge the place into darkness.

I jump slightly when Nathaniel shines a light at me so I can lock the panel closed. He mutters a soft "Sorry"

"No problem" I tell him quietly sighing.

I pull my own torch from my pack, and turn it on, adding a little more light to the room. "We're gunna have to stay here for the night; it just wouldn't do for us to be walking around at night with god knows what out there" I say, shining my light around to see what we have; Nathaniel does the same.

"Well, I can tell the date they stopped stocking here.. November 8th 2094... so that's roughly sixty-six years from our time" Nathaniel says, looking at what looks like to be a newspaper; he studies it closer "Hey, there's a Eco mark on the corner... they'd starting sorting out deforestation in the 2030's apparently" he says happily "Chester'll be happy abou- hey, do you think the others are alright?"

I laugh "Don't worry... with Isabella and Ryan working together, I'm sure they'll be fine" I tell him "I'm going to check the back rooms, see what we can stock up on... and please drink some water, you're not looking well" I say softly, chucking him a bottle of water off the shelf.

"I'm fine, honestly" Nathaniel says sharply, setting the water down next to himself and scowling slightly.

I ground my teeth "You, are not fine" I tell him "The way you were when we were in the Jurassic... it's like you weren't even there, and your pale now ...so no, you are not fine... what happened?" I ask quietly, stepping towards him.

Nathaniel shrugged "I don't know... It was like... one minute I was standing with you guys, about to go through the leaves, and the next..." Nathaniel stopped talking and swallowed, rubbing a hand tiredly over his face.

"The next?" I press on quietly; resting my hand on his arm.

Nathaniel sighed "I was... I was in a dark room, with... with a woman... I couldn't make out her face" he looked at me suddenly "But... I've been in that room before... I'm sure of it... but I don't ever remember being somewhere like that" he let out a large breath of air before smiling at me "You know, it's probably just exhaustion or something, what with the head, and the adrenalin"

I nod; though I am worried "Yeah, that's probably it... tell you what, there are some blankets in the back room... plus there's plenty of food and water... so I say we eat and drink, and then try to get some proper rest huh?"

He smiles at me "Yeah, sounds like a great Idea"

* * *

I hope your liking it so far!

**I will update as soon as I can, but I've actually got to write chapter the next chapter before I can upload it **

Let me know what you thought of the story; I'll be mentioning people before each new chapter! So you could have your name mentioned!

**OpenUpMyHeart is putting her pen down!**


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